Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Mind, body, spirit - pictorially

I have so many ideas to write about. I wanted to add two pictures here today in an attempt to explain an osteopathic approach to health and healing. Dr Edward Stiles teaches the paradigm of medicine that the presence or absence of disease does not dictate the presence or absence of illness. Basically, your body plays a role in whether or not you get sick. Why is it that some people get sick and others do not? Why does pneumonia kill the children or elderly and not the healthy 20-something?

HOST + DISEASE = ILLNESS.

We will talk more about this later. On to my pictures. Keep in mind, these are talking only about the host.

I am combining multiple ideas and trying to simplify them into two pictures. The first is a depiction of an inner expression of ourselves. People are a combination of mind, body and spirit. Some health care providers try to be "politically correct" by saying "bio-psycho-social," but I prefer the words of Dr Still, the founder of osteopathy. This simple diagram shows the 'interconnected-ness' between the body, mind and spirit.

The other diagram is the inverse or the outer expression. If you view these two as the Ying and the Yang of Traditional Chinese Medicine, it might make sense that the outer expression of the person is what we see: the "strong" or the light. The inner expression is the "weak" or the dark/deep aspects of ourselves.

I view the body as a self regulating organism, capable of self healing, formed with intricate concepts of tensegrity that acts as a whole unit. The spirit is the intangible unit of ultra fine matter that exudes a force with magnetic-like properties, interacting with a higher, guiding power to connect with the body and other people, animals or environments around us. (This is the part of us that hurts when we fail or get punished.) The mind is a process of mentation that is direct-able, that integrates all sensory input and filters it through our personal experiences and spiritual awareness to produce a reaction or direction the body is to go.

The ideas behind these concepts will fill several other blogs!

The nuts and bolts concept here (or key idea as I was taught) is that we are complex! The Outer Expression is what moves us to action. Emotions play a huge roll in this.
If we start in the left arm between mind and body, I feel that this is where habits come to play. Our thoughts proceed our habits, which are enacted by our body and negatively become addictions, while they can also positively become skills.

The right arm between mind and spirit is where emotions and the complexities originate. Provided the body's influence of hormones, chemicals, cancer, addictions and so on do not interfere, then positive emotions become intuition and instinct. Negatively, I feel this is most likely where psychologic disorders originate.

The arm between body and spirit is where our motivations play the biggest role. With positive energy, these motivations become our "righteous anger" or driving force. (I feel at a loss for better words in English, so please comment.) Negatively, motivations become frustrations, which "hamstring" us and leave us going nowhere.

The Inner Expression changes significantly. I am at a loss of words how to describe it yet, but perhaps you can teach me!
The left arm between body and mind represents our knowledge. Used positively, it becomes wisdom, allowing us to understand all things, even those that we don't quite "know." There are some who may say this comes from a connection with a Higher Power, and I would agree. But, if knowledge leads to conceit or arrogance, the knowledge becomes foolishness. How many of us know physicians who "know it all?"

The right arm between mind and spirit is inspiration. In a positive setting, this becomes hope. In a negative setting, it becomes doubt. Often, the mind plays the devil's advocate to our spirits optimism.

The bottom arm between body and spirit is faith, or belief. Used in a positive setting, it grows into charity. Negatively, it becomes selfishness.

We all have all aspects within us. I have only scratched the surface. There are many more connections I would like to explore. I am hoping I can tie this all in to my theory why "Psycho-Somatic Reflexes" work and why they are predictable and mappable. (More on this - promise)

Thank you for sticking with me. Please keep in mind, these are my ideas that I am actively dwelling on as I round on patients. Please post the feed back on your ideas and I will happily consider them!